1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Internet Protocol (IP) address acquisition in a broadband wireless communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for acquiring an IP address of a terminal which communicates using multiple Frequency Allocations (FAs) in the broadband wireless communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A great number of wireless communication techniques have been suggested as candidates for a high-speed mobile communication. Among them, an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme is regarded as the most dominant next-generation wireless communication technique. It is anticipated that the OFDM will be applied to most of the wireless communication techniques by the year of 2010. A Wireless Metropolitan Area Network (WMAN) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 that is called the 3.5th-generation technology also adopts the OFDM as the standard specification.
Meanwhile, wireless communication systems are advancing to servicing high-speed data or addressing various issues in the implementation process, compared to the legacy systems. In the process of this development, diverse systems may coexist in the same region according to their compatibility with the legacy systems. For example, a new advanced system can be installed in the region of an IEEE 802.16e system. In this case, the new system should be able to support the service to both of the existing terminal and the new terminal.
Through a single Frequency Allocation (FA), the current OFDM broadband wireless communication system supports only terminals which use a single bandwidth. Hence, to support a new terminal to be developed to use a wider bandwidth in the future, the FA of the system needs to be changed to a new FA of the corresponding bandwidth. However, the system of the changed FA cannot service the terminals which use the existing narrow bandwidth. In other words, when the FA of the system is changed, it is necessary to change all of the existing terminals at the same time. In this respect, in the development of the broadband wireless communication system, it is needed a method for supporting both the existing terminals using the narrow bandwidth and the new terminals using the wide bandwidth is needed.